Coming Home
by bionsena
Summary: This is the story of an orphan who got her heart broken. Charles and Raven were the only family she had growing up. In one lifetime they lose touch and never find each other again. In another they all get the chance to put things right. Story is hopefully better than Summary. Charles/OC.
1. Chapter 1

She meets them at the age of nine.

She meets Raven first; the shy little blonde girl sits alone in the cafeteria on her first day at the local high school. She knows how it feels to sit alone because she does the same. She's the poor little foster girl.

Poor little Susannah whose parents didn't want her and lives at the children's home. The other children regard her as a curiosity, a freak. They act like they'll catch something if the sit near her. Even at her age she knows that people can be so very cruel to those they consider different. She watches Raven stare wide eyed at the noise and the chaos around her in fear and trepidation. It's like she's afraid someone is going to start pointing and laughing at her.

She feels pity for someone else for the first time in a long time. Usually she's far too concerned with pitying herself but in Raven she can see a kindred spirit so she gather's all her courage and walks over to the new girl and holds out a hand.

It's all worth it when the girl smiles back.

…

Raven is her first real friend and she's excited when she takes her to her house to meet her brother in the summer holidays. She's in awe of the house of course its intimidating in size but somehow it feels welcoming.

Charles Xavier is a year older than she is and attends a boarding school far away. He's some kind of genius Raven tells her and so she builds up an idea in her head of what a genius would look like but he's perfectly ordinary in appearance and he smiles with his eyes as much as his mouth.

She spends every day she can at their house after that and the three of them quickly become inseparable. Even when Charles goes away to school again, she and Raven write him letters and he writes back.

She finds out about the mutations almost by accident. She gets so used to walking in to the house without knocking that one day she walks into the kitchen and Raven is _blue_. Charles comes running downstairs seconds later and she sits heavily in her chair while they explain to her what they are and what they can do and beg her no to tell.

 _Of Course_ she thinks because quite frankly it's the most spectacular secret ever and Charles beams at her.

…

Time passes quickly after that and at sixteen she walks around in motorcycle jackets and ripped jeans and does her best to get herself, Charles and Raven into as much trouble as possible. She picks locks to get the answers to a pop quiz, breaks curfew frequently, climbs over locked gates to get into the park at night. One day she hacks off most of her long brown hair in a fit of boredom.

Raven thinks it's a great laugh and usually lets herself get dragged along. Charles shakes his head at her in fond amusement and tries without any real effort to get her to stop. She's glad of this because she hates to disappoint him. She falls short of any real delinquency and she doesn't smoke because cigarettes are gross.

She looks at Charles differently now, has done ever since puberty started to kick in. Charles is fairly adorable with that dark hair and blue eyes and he's one of the two people she's ever found the capacity to love. They're amazing these wacky two with their fantastic gifts and they include her, invited her in to their little family and she can never repay that gratitude she feels that almost chokes her.

She never feels resentful that she's normal, isn't jealous of their gifts because she's seen the fear in their eyes when they talk about being discovered and she has no desire to feel ever feel like that. Plus she's enough of an outcast as is thank you very much.

…

Charles notice's she's a girl the summer he graduates from high school. He finishes the week before they do which is a complete injustice. She tells Raven there is no way in hell she's going to something as lame as a high school dance especially as Raven is a year behind her and can't go with her.

Charles can go with you Raven tells her and she laughs knowing that Charles felt much the same way about these sorts of things as she does. Raven pouts at both of them and stresses the importance of not missing out on a rite of passage for young people.

The result of course is that she waits by the front gate of the children's home in a green dress that matches her eyes. It's cold but it's better than waiting inside where all the other kids stare and smirk. Charles picks her up and, she realises that Raven is the best friend ever, when his mouth drops open just a little at the sight of her in anything other than jeans.

They don't stay at the dance for long because dances really are lame, but she gets to dance with him and he smells fantastic and she could swear the air sparks between them. They head back to the mansion and collapse on the sofa, her shoes are killing her and she kicks them off. Raven has long gone to bed and they sit there and talk, about their lives, the future, everything. They liberate a bottle of his stepfather's whiskey and drink till the early hours.

The fire dwindles casting everything in orangey light and her head swims pleasantly and the conversation falls silent. She catches his eye and they just stare at each other for a long moment. She still can't remember who moved first but she winds up with her hands in his hair and he moves on top of her.

They both lose their virginity that night. It was perfect and right and she was fortunate to have had it. Awkwardness takes over in the morning and the concept of hanging everything she and Charles already had on a romance scares the shit out of her so she tells him it can't happen again. He agrees probably having picked her reasons out of head and tells her he doesn't want to risk it either. They both smile and things return to normal. They don't tell Raven about it, it just feels too weird.

…

They lose their mother and stepfather 3 years later. He flies home from Oxford and she, a bartender and struggling musician, drops everything for them to stand in the rain and hold their hands while some priest tries to be comforting as he talks about people he'd actually never met and falls very short.

Charles drinks too much that night and she stays sober and pats him on the arm. He'd never really had an ideal relationship with his mother but he'd still loved her the way most children love their parents even if they don't like them. He sucks her in, begs with his baby blue eyes for comfort, so she gives in takes him to bed. She wishes she was strong enough to resist but can't help but feel glad that he's put the ghosts to rest for the moment.

…

Her inability to say no to Charles Xavier grows stronger. He and his sister still manage to tug her close even when she's on the other side of the Atlantic to them. She visits them shortly before Charles finishes his PhD and notices that Raven has started to look at Charles the same way she does. She feels guilty that she'd never told her the truth and guiltier still when she feels a little bit glad that Charles looks at the blonde the same way he always has, as a sister.

She's not jealous when Charles sees other girls while she's there. They've never been exclusive and she has no claim over him, besides she's had boyfriends herself in the meantime.

She tells herself not to sleep with him again and then does so anyway because it's _Charles_ and he's her best friend and she's always been a little bit in love with him.

She hugs Raven goodbye and waves to them again as she heads of home.

In one lifetime it's the last time she ever sets eyes on them.

In another it's almost three decades until they meet again.

…

She calls to congratulate him on graduating but no-one picks up. She doesn't suspect anything then, just thinks he's out partying and they'll call her back. Raven will if nothing else.

So she calls again the next day. And the next.

On the seventh day she she's hyperventilating thinking the worst. They're dead or have been kidnapped. Lying in the hospital in a coma. She calls Oxford again and again, goes round to the mansion to check if they've returned there. They have dropped off the face of the earth and she is alone. Again. For the first time in twelve years she feels that crushing loneliness she felt as a child.

Six weeks after that first missed call she sits in the doctor's office and cries as he tells her the news.

Pregnant.

The walls close in on her the room spins and she's going to be sick. She can't do this, there's no way she can do this. Not without them. Her family.

Dark thoughts creep in, the idea that Charles had already known and that's why he's not answering that's why they're gone. Or that they'd finally had enough of her and had abandoned her like her parents had. She ignores these thoughts because they'd _promised_ her. Promised it would always be the three of them against the world.

She makes a choice that day. Stares into the mirror and tells herself to get a grip. She could do anything she damn well set her mind too. The dark thoughts persist and she shoves them into a box in the corner of her mind along with all her memories of Charles and Raven and swears to do her best to move on.

Three days after that she packs up her life and takes a job at a bakery in New York. She's always been good with food. The phone rings as she picks up the last box and she glances at it briefly. Probably for the new tenant she thinks, call back tomorrow pal, and closes the door behind her.

In one lifetime that is the end of the story.

In another the story has just closed a chapter.

…

Its ten years before she opens her Charles and Raven box again. In 1973 she stands frozen in her kitchen a dish dripping on the floor, a dishrag in the other hand.

 _Raven_ is on TV. Her sweet former best friend is holding a gun at the President. A crazy mutant terrorist is on the ground behind her and she watches as Raven lowers the gun and pulls off the guys helmet and tell Charles who she can't see that he's all his. The guy gets to his feet and shifts a metal pylon before flying off to God knows where. Lunatic.

She sits down for a moment so she can breathe.

"Mommy."

She glances across the table. The twins are ten now and they have ceased bickering to stare at her in concern. Jack is dark haired with green eyes and Gracie has lighter brown hair and blue eyes that hurt to look at sometimes. Neither has shown the slightest inclination that they might be a mutant and for one second she thanks whatever higher power was involved in that because the world is about to go crazy.

Her son returns to his motorcycle magazine and her daughter blinks down at her science homework. What a mixture they are she thinks, of the both of us.

The world does indeed go quite mad.

…

The next decade passes relatively peacefully for the West household which is something to be grateful for as she watches another crazy mutant literally destroy the world. She hears Charles' voice in her head and she staggers in the supermarket at the shock of it.

Pain rips through every inch of her as she's forced to confront his continued existence properly at long last. She's angry and confused, betrayed and hurt and it _burns_. She curls up in a ball and cries for the first time in years. She is still in love with him, has never married. Just in case.

A fool's dream. And she is a fool.

…

She picks herself up again. That's what she does, what she's best at and she's used to it now.

In 1985 she watches Gracie get married and this time her tears are of joy. David is lovely, will look after her little girl. Jack gives his sister away beaming. He shows no interest in marriage at all; actually he shows no interest in women at all and she knows why. She is his mother after all but she will wait for him to tell her.

Tragedy strikes five years later and she finds herself at another funeral. This time she holds her granddaughters hand as the little girl asks for her mummy and daddy and she finds herself guardian to the poor orphaned child.

This is grief. Stronger more dangerous than anything in the world. The waves of it threaten to pull them all under and cast them away but they cling to each other as best they can. Jack visits more often now, knowing how short life can be.

Shortly after Alice turns six she hears screams coming from her granddaughter's bedroom. She finds the little girl with her hands clamped over her ears and a gut wrenchingly familiar expression on her face.

In one life she'd sat with her, calmed her down and spent the rest of her life trying to remember how telepathy worked and how to help someone with it.

In this life, she picks up the sobbing child, packs her into the car and drives to Westchester.

…

I swallowed all my pride and hurt and buzzed the intercom. A friendly voice asked me if he could help.

"Susannah West, here to see Charles Xavier."

"Does he know you're coming?"

"No. But he'll see me."

He'd better be willing to see me. Betrayal settles in my chest, turns cold and hard. He can't hurt me again and I shove all emotion as far away from me as possible.

I walk through the front door, Alice cradled in my arms and Raven, blue and scaly is running down the stairs towards me. The sight of her causes an ache in her chest of long forgotten fondness but I keep my face cold, eyes steely and voice flat.

"My granddaughter needs some help." I tell my oldest friend.

She flinches at my tone of voice and opens her mouth. I have no desire to hear what she has to say and I spin towards the sound of someone approaching.

The first thing I notice is the wheelchair, the second is that he has no hair. A little vindictively I consider that he has not aged well and then feel awful for thinking it.

"Susannah" He says. Just my name, that's all and my knees want to give way in this hallway surrounded by my past on both sides. Raven moves to stand next to him and collectively we stare at each other.

"Grandma" Alice clutches at my sleeve and turns her head to catch sight of her Grandfather for the first time in her life. She looks just like Gracie, the spitting image and so she blinks tear filled blue eyes at these strangers. Charles' eyes.

They both notice this at the same time. Raven actually gasped aloud. Charles just stares in amazement and then wonder and he reaches for her. I put her down on her feet and she stumbles towards his outstretched hands trusting him on sight. He places his hands on either side of her head and she calms as the voices pause for the moment.

We head to Charles' study for some privacy. Alice falls asleep on the couch exhausted.

"Is she…"

I interrupt him "Telepathic? Or were you going to ask if she was related to you?"

"Both." Raven breathes.

I nod, answering both questions simultaneously.

Love flickers across Charles face when he glances back at the sleeping child. That's how fast you love your own flesh and blood. Instantaneously.

I stare at a spot somewhere above Charles' head "I gave birth to twins in the March of 1963. A boy and a girl. Alice is my daughter's daughter."

It takes Charles a moment to speak and when he does his voice is shaky "And what were their names?"

"Jack. And Gracie."

I flick a glance at him and his eyes are wet. Tears of joy, or of sadness, I wondered.

He stares at me "Why did you keep this from me?"

My temper fought its way out from underneath from the numbness.

"And how exactly was I supposed to tell you?" He opened his mouth but I had waited for this moment for thirty years and I finally hit flashpoint.

"You dropped off the face of the earth for six weeks. I thought you were dead!" I spat bitterly at them both as quietly as I could "I thought you knew and didn't want them. I thought you'd finally decided I wasn't worth the effort. I called a hundred times, I went round your house. I t _ried everything!_ Imagine my surprise when I saw you on TV alive and well and apparently homicidal" I pointed at Raven as I said this "I've spent thirty years raising those children without your help and they did just fine without a father. I didn't need you. Either of you, so don't you dare blink wounded blue eyes at me Charles Xavier! You can go to hell!"

"Susannah" He says.

I put as much venom into my voice as I can muster and harden my stare "I hate you."

"It was complicated" Raven says desperately "We were…"

"I really don't give a shit what you were doing three decades ago. I've imagined every possible scenario that could come out of your mouth and there isn't a damn thing you could say that would possibly justify you not picking up a phone for six weeks. And to top it all off I'm the one feeling guilty that I didn't try again when I knew you were alive and now Gracie is _dead_ and she'll never get to meet her father and my granddaughter is hearing voices in her head so I had to come here and face you and I never wanted to see you again."

The tears break loose and this point and I bury my face in my hands a sob silently, shoulders shaking. They both move as though to touch me and I snap and them both to not fucking touch me. Raven recoils but Charles persisted and wrapped one arm around my shoulders.

I cry into his shoulder.

"I'm sorry" He whispers into my hair.

"It's going to take more than sorry."

Raven takes my hands "We know."

And I can tell by their voices that they do in fact know. We sit there in the house I once loved and slowly my heart pieces itself back together. They'll explain later, what happened all those years ago, how Charles lost his legs, what happened in DC and in Egypt and in turn I'll tell them about my children, show him pictures of Gracie and eventually introduce my son to his father.

But that's for later. Right now I just sit and breathe and realise what's happening.

I've come home.

 **A/N This is a fic that has been banging around in my head for ages. I've changed the names a dozen times. I hope you like it. I swapped to first person at the end to demonstrate this was the present.**


	2. Chapter 2

Charles Xavier had been in love with Susannah West for so long he's forgotten when it started.

She's the first person, apart from Raven, that he ever tells about his powers. The first normal person. She isn't afraid of him, of them, in fact she thinks they're spectacular and he feels relief and gratitude that this remarkable person has stumbled into his life.

He'd be grateful to her regardless; she took Raven under her wing and guided her through the nightmare that was public high school. She's Raven's best friend and he doesn't want to intrude but Susannah manages to tug him into her life anyway and then it's the three of them. Three against the world she says and tugs on his hair when he rolls his eyes at her.

She was lonely before. The foster child who'd never had friends or family and so didn't trust them when she finally got them and so he tries his very hardest to make sure she never feels like that again.

He already knows he's in love when he takes her to that high school dance. She's beautiful in that dress, but Susannah is always beautiful. She has the brightest green eyes and her brown hair catches red sometimes in the sunlight. He despairs at her attempts at breaking rules but can't bring himself to argue with her when she flashes him an impish grin and tells him she'll do it anyway. He finds himself captivated by the smell of leather because of that jacket she always wears.

The night of the dance when he finds himself lost in her, and it's quite magical, is probably the best day of his life so far. And then somehow it's ruined when she pulls away the next day, calls it a mistake. She's not ready he realises; she's terrified of losing everything she has. Because he and Raven are all she's got.

So he'll wait. He can be patient. So he lets her pull away, puts her back in the friend box for the moment. He doesn't tell Raven what's happened, he doesn't want to tempt fate.

He doesn't realise this was a mistake until too late.

…

His mother's funeral. He grieves for her he really does. He's never liked his stepfather particularly but he feels the loss of his mother like a knife cutting through his chest, even though they were never very close. Not in the way some people are with their mothers.

He clings to Susannah's hand as tightly as he can, Raven on her other side, and she's been a rock for them both. She keeps him from drowning in it, pulls him out of the swell.

It's not right when he kisses her, whiskey dulling the pain a little, he doesn't want to push her when she still isn't ready. She kisses him back though and lets him find whatever comfort he needs that night and he's so very thankful.

He watches her as she sleeps and feels a little like a creep but so much emotion, _love_ , chokes him when he looks at her filling his chest like he's in a warm bath. Her face is smooth, peaceful and he won't shatter her illusions won't speak these feelings out loud in case he loses her for good.

This was his second mistake.

…

He dates other women, tries to forget, to move on maybe. He despairs that she'll ever be ready. Then it happens a third time, just before he graduates from Oxford and he feels hope return briefly and then she leaves again.

There's nothing malicious in it, she has to go home, and she has a job. Maybe, just maybe, he needs to give her some space. Let her work through her feelings and then she'll finally come to the same realisation that he did all those years ago.

That it was just meant to be.

Then quite conveniently there is a huge distraction. Cuba and everything after it puts the problem of his love life quite firmly out of his head and he puts Susannah aside, gives her a little space so she doesn't think he wants to smother her.

Except by the time every gets sorted out six weeks have somehow passed in the blink of an eye and he sits by the phone terrified she won't pick up. She'd be quite right not too he thinks. Idiot. He calls again and again for hours until finally some man picks up on the other end and tells him no there is nobody here by that name.

This was the third mistake. And the worst.

…

He has varying levels of success at putting himself back together over the next thirty years. In 1973 he finds himself at the bottom of a pit made of self-loathing and _despair_. He thinks of her even more often then, of how she would have pulled him out of this simply by refusing to let him be so pathetic. You didn't argue with Susannah, she was not to be trifled with.

He meets Logan and finds the tiniest sliver of hope after so long without it. He wonders if she's seen Raven on TV and what she thinks of them now if she thinks of them at all. He wonders if she still thinks of mutants as spectacular after this.

He wants to ask Logan if he knows Susannah, if he's ever met her, but he chickens out and doesn't.

He most likely doesn't want to know.

…

He looks for her in Cerebro. Just the once but there are millions of humans in comparison to mutants and he doesn't have much luck. He decides not to torture himself and stops looking.

Then he is speaking to every person on Earth at once and he wonders what she makes of him now, how he has changed. He wonders what she thinks of his message and hopes briefly that she will come and find him now that she's heard his voice again.

She doesn't.

…

It's 1991 before he sees her again. Raven starts screaming at him in his head from halfway across the building.

 _Charles its Susannah! She's here! Hank just told me!_

He moves as fast as the chair allows him to, wonders briefly what she'll think of it and then kicks himself for being self centered. Again. He finds her by the stairs, something clutched in her arms but he only has eyes for her face. It's the same, a little more lined maybe, but those eyes were as green as ever. They were also ice cold and he wants to recoil in shame and self-loathing. Raven looks just as crushed and moves to his side as if to escape the inevitable wrath.

It's then he notices the thing she's carrying is a child. The tiny little thing blinks up at him in fear through tears soaked eyelashes. Her eyes are blue. The same blue he sees in the mirror every day. Those are his eyes and he wonders how this adorable child has come to steal them when she stumbles towards him arms outstretched.

He feels the noise in her head, the screaming voices, just like he had once experienced himself and he knows what she is, just as she seems to know _who_ he is, trusting him immediately as something deep inside her tells her that somehow this new stranger is _hers_ just like Grandma and Uncle Jack are.

His granddaughter is remarkable and he feels so very lucky and love for this new person floods him at once. She works her way into his heart with breath-taking ease and he wants more than anything to keep her safe. And he has a son and a daughter but he will never get to meet his daughter, because she's _gone_ , and he grieves for the missed chance.

Susannah rips him a new one, him and Raven both, and rightly so. He refuses to listen when she tells him to back off though and tucks her head into his shoulder as they did back when she was upset as a child. She shakes silently against him and he knows that sorry isn't good enough.

But it's a start.

…

I can't help but stare at this new visitor. His eyes are so very green and familiar and there's something about his hair and his jawline that reminds me of myself that I feel I would know who this was if I had just run into him on the street.

This is my son. Jack. He's a grown man now and has long since grown out of needing a father but he seems pleased enough to have one now. He's a mechanic and he shares with me his love of cars and motorcycles and anything that goes fast, he's so much like his mother who stands watching us from a little distance away. She's giving us this time alone.

He thinks mutants are spectacular too and he willingly shows me all his favourite memories of his sister. Of Gracie. The brilliant, beautiful and bubbly doctor I was cheated out of meeting by my own stupidity and both her parents' stubbornness to put the past behind them. She had my eyes too just like Alice does and her mother's unique spirit.

Later I'll watch the sunset with the girl I've always loved while my son introduces himself to my new rather large family.

And I'll take her hand and she'll smile just a little. Starting to forgive me but still a long way to go. For now however my life feels complete at long last.

She's come home.


End file.
